A Stray Ember
by SummerHarvest
Summary: It wasn't the sunrise that blazed the sky red. The inn was on fire and now Mark has a decision to make. The cozy little life of the valley would be disrupted for the next few years to come.


Steam fumbled out of Ruby's kitchen like a thick cloud, rolling along the ceiling. The inn has recently been prosperous with the Mineral town folks coming regularly checking in and out weekly. In addition of Van opening shop in the back halls. At first it was a nuisance, and illegal. Soon enough, Ruby struck a deal, if he gave a strict percentage of his earnings to the inn then he can remain. Nami, the valley wanderer, also resides in the inn. She's been to quite a few places and spends her time mainly in solitude. Despite her reserved nature, Ruby counts her blessings that Nami helps around the inn unlike her son Rock. Even with his father out journeying around the globe, Rock doesn't bother to pick up around the place, but he sure can return home for a meal.

It was a quite night in summer. The windows of the inn were cranked open to let any lost drifting breeze into the stuffy rooms. Ruby hasn't the money to install air-conditioners in any of the rooms. Rock has complained about it in the past but someone who isn't paying rent doesn't get a say in the matters of the building. The northern sky was cloudless and only the faint reflection of the moon off the ocean gave light. Ruby was preparing food for the next days to come in the kitchen. It was customary for her to satisfy her guest's stomachs for as long as they were there, even though there was not a formal place to serve them. Most didn't take the service but any who came to the kitchen in the mornings were welcome to breakfast.

It was airless on the farm. No gust of wind or cross winds lulled the grass in the fields. Mark laid in bed with his wife, his child only a few feet away slumbering. It was sometime in the middle of the night that he was awoken by an onset of rapping on the door accompanied by yelling. The burst on the door could only be described as an intense session of fist-to-door banging with the utmost urgency. "Mark! Mark, we have an emergency!"

The grogginess of the Mark's mind quickly subsided by the bright flickering of red and yellow light on the walls. His wife shot up from bed, tearing the sheets from her legs. "Mark, what's happening?" She lunged for her crying son. He didn't have time to find out, he sped to the door. Along the way he could see something bright through the window passed the trees.

"Mark!" he could hear Takakura wailing from beyond the door. His fist hitting the door hard enough to break it down. Mark's heart tightened and compressed in his chest in only a way fear could cause.

As soon as he opened the door, he knew what was occurring. A fire. The heat hit him and rolled into the home. "Mark!" he heard his wife call. "What's happening?" she called. She was looking out the window on her tippy toes. He doesn't remember if he answered her back. All Mark knows is that he couldn't hear anything beyond a dull roar as he scanned the property. It wasn't the property on fire. The fire was coming from below. Through the layer of trees atop the hill his property resided on, light was blazing.

"Hurry, there's a fire at the inn. We must go now" Takakura pointed down toward the trees. Mark called for his wife to remain in with the child. Last he saw of her before heading out, she was clutching the child in her arms fiercer than a momma bear protecting her young. The run there was quick. The path was illuminated by the flickering flames. As they came around the corner they saw what must've been the entirety of the town circling the inn. Thick flames rolled through the open windows and roof. The entire second level was on fire. Mark felt his breath hitch in his chest. Ruby was wailing in the front of the inn. Griffin and someone else was trying to hold her back. It was hard to see. He ran towards them. The people were either set aflame in red, yellow hues or bathed in the blue of the night.

As he approached, he saw the red of Nami's hair. She was sidelined with treating some burns and bruises. Upon seeing him lit up by the flames she stood up.

"Mark, hurry and help. Rock is still inside!" She shouted to him. She winced after the mighty shout. The sides of her neck and jaw were burned. He grimaced at the sight of her. Ruby wasn't much better. She was crying and shouting for someone to get her boy.

The smooth steam that had been rising in the kitchen just a few hours earlier had soon conjured coal-black smoke. Thick and heavy. No one had known that Ruby had left the food to boil on the stovetop. Completely unaware that the paper-bags most of her food was held in was dangerously close to the flame and would eventually heat to the point of flame. She was ignorant of the explosive nature of certain kitchen ingredients. That was something Patrick and Kassey would know. It wasn't long until the smoke ascended the stairway into the second level. And so did the flames.

"Mark, Mark!" Gustafa yelled, waving over to him briefly. Takakura was quick to rush inside. Mark ran to Gustafa. His usual black round sunglasses were pure white in the light of the flames. "I'm glad you're here man. You gotta help-" Ruby broke free of her restraints and grabbed onto Mark.

"Help my Rock is still in there! Please save him!" She wailed. Her small dark eyes were shiny from tears and the flames only a few feet away. The heat was blistering against Mark's back.

Gustafa broke in a few more words, "Someone already went for Mineral Town. The doctor and his nurse should be coming with others"

"Please save him!" Ruby tugged at his sleeves. "I-I will!" He stuttered. His voice shook. Even he knew that he was afraid. The entrance wasn't too dangerous to enter, it only flamed at the top of the doorframe. The rest was untouched. Upon entering he realized how foolish it was to enter a burning building. The heat was unbearable and against him the heat acted as its own power and shield. It pushed him back. He fell out of the doorway, relieved by the cool night air swooning along his skin. He heard a chorus of yells and shouts. Some for him to go in and others for him to stay out. He wasn't sure what to do. It was just then that one of the calls reached his ears with a familiar voice. He dragged himself out of the doorway and peered up to the voice.

From between the thick trunks of the trees on his property, his wife's frame came into sight. She was holding the child in her arms. Atop the hill she called to him.

 _I believe in you!_

He picked himself up. The flames against his back he returned to them. He paused briefly. He thought of his wife before entering, his son. He wanted to be there for them. This could jeopardize that future, but most of all, he wanted to be someone for them to be proud of. Not someone who would shy away when needed most. With the support of his wife he reentered the inn.

He kept is face low, the heat of it all could burn even without contact to a flame. It tore at his eyes. The flames licked a path along the wallpaper and chipped wood of the stairwell. They climbed up higher. The stairway looked like a twisting inferno before him. Despite the warning bells in his brain screeching for him leave, he ascended the steps. Only the stairwell was bright from the flames.

The second floor itself was almost completely pitch black from the smoke. The back way to where Van sets up shop was almost nonexistent in the darkness. Only to the left, was there some shrewd light coming. The flames, for whatever reason, clawed their path that way. Like a trail of liquid light, the flames set a path following their destruction. The path clung to the wall just passed Nami's room. She would've been able to escape without having to fight the flames though she did look battered. Takakura was beating the flames with the towel he wore around his neck.

Mark called out to him. Takakura barely heard, the crisping and popping of the flames made the noise insufferable. Beyond Nami's bubble of safety was a complete blaze. There was only one room beyond Nami's.

Rock's.

He wouldn't have been able to escape. Mark was beginning to feel dizzy from the smoke and got low. Takakura was calling his name with no reply. Just then an idea occurred to Mark. He went for the space outside Nami's room. That space was a much cooler than the where he had just been. Her door was still open from when she escaped. He went in and saw exactly what he was looking for. The Window.

The blinds were flapping in the breeze. They were blistering with flames chewing on their tails. He pushed passed them. Some of the frame was heated. The fire had escaped through the other side and travelled out. Mostly likely through her other neighbor's window. He kneeled in the window, his grip on the frame tightly. He could hear the screams of the villagers beneath. The brightness of the flames hit him all at once. He almost lost his grip completely as he stared at the side of the building. Even more was burning than he thought. Only at the feeling that he was about to fall did he retighten his grip.

"Be careful!" someone yelled. "Rock's room is next door" another yelled amid the shouting. He could see Dr. Trent with nurse, Elli, treating Ruby's burns alongside Nami, who was rubbing her arm. Beneath Mark was a small ledge. It ran along the entire second floor. He didn't know if this was possible but he had to at least try. He moved down slowly, making sure his feet were firm against it. He was standing outside the window. He knew he would have to move fast because the heat was getting closer.

When the people saw what he was doing, they began to cheer. Still there was a cry of fear in their calls. Slowly he inched one foot towards Rock's window, then did the same with the other. The window wasn't too far away but he had to travel at a snail's pace. He didn't want to fall. Mark could see the curtains to Rock's window flapping in the heat fueled wind. Smoke billowing out along the frame-head. It wasn't until he was within hand-reach of the door that a new fear gripped him. Why wasn't Rock at the window?

Was he down in the hall? Did Takakura already save him?

It wasn't until he heard Ruby screaming for him to save her only son that he knew he'd have to go in. If he wanted to know if he was there he'd just have to go find out. The frame was hot. He was glad he was wearing gloves. He pushed inside. The room was hot and dark. The door was open and flames ate at the doorframe and hallways. It astonished Mark how the hall could be so bright but the room so dark. He knew he couldn't marvel all day and went to searching for Rock. He called his name. There was a response. Not from Rock.

"Mark, where are you?" Takakura called. He sounded as if he has gotten closer to the room from where Mark left him.

"I'm in his room!" "How did you-?" he sounded baffled but quickly went to the point. "Is he there"

Mark set to looking around the room. "I can't find him!" he shouted over the fire. Where was he? He had to be here- Mark bit his lip, hard. No, he doesn't. The sudden possibility of Rock not even being in the building flashed behind his eyes like a red alarm. That jobless playboy is known to wander about aimlessly. He probably is chasing skirts somewhere. He could be in Mineral Town for all they knew. It wasn't unlike him to leave in the night. Mark has personally caught him roaming the night with some beer in his system.

"Is he there?" Takakura called. Mark moved about through the seemingly empty room. That bastard was gone. "No-" Mark was walking back to the window when he tripped over something. Someone. Only the light of the fire shone on a limp hand revealed a person. Upon hitting the floor, Mark scurried back to the wall. In a burst, his breathing quickened from what he was seeing. In and out. He tried to breath but he was feeling dazed from the horrific sight. He was hyperventilating. He couldn't think. His head was light. The hand, reaching up on the bed, it was Rock's. The muscles in his chest tightened like a constrictor wrapped around his lungs. The hand loomed in the dark all alone, separate from the body shrouded in darkness. It was all he could see. The sight was like looking through the center of a tunnel with everything else blurred into blackness. The hand wasn't moving.

Mark was exhaling more than he was inhaling. Accompanied by the smoke he was dizzy.

Breathe. _Breathe!_

The mantra only saved him from passing out. He was still sitting against the wall. The flames were eating at the building with more intensity. Breath! He tried. That wasn't the first time this has happened to him. It had been 2 years ago when he was slashing the tall grass in his field when he was struck. His chest tightened and his fingers tingled. It was his wife who found him like that. She brought him out of it. She coached him and taught him how to breathe. She was scared. Mark remembered seeing tears in her eyes when finally calmed down. The farm had been failing because of a poor harvest. The crops hadn't survived and neither had two of their cows. They were going through a rough patch in their marriage because of it. Mark blamed himself. He said he would take care of her but now she flaunts around a torn-up dress. It just all got to him. When his breathing evened out, she held him. She pulled him into her bosom and told him he was fine, it's all be fine.

He could feel her with him there. He tried to slow his breathing down. It took all he had to resist the urge just to let go. He felt the tightening in his chest ease into nothing. He didn't' know how long he had been sitting there but when his vision reached the end of the tunnel, he could see the flames on the door and the desk beside himself. Rock hadn't moved for the whole ordeal. The noise all came back to him. The popping, the curtains flapping, the screams from outside. He had to catch his breath. "I...I-" he was still breathing a little funny. He was trying to straighten himself out. "I fou- I found him!" He shouted.

Takakura had made his way to the room only a minute later. "There" Mark pointed. Takakura reached out to the hand. Another went down into the faint darkness. The room had lightened up by the flames. Mark could barely discern Rock's blonde hair through the haze. His white jacket was tarnished by soot.

"We have to get him out of here" Takakura said. Just then they both heard the crash of something falling in the hall. The floor reverberated beneath their feet. The two of them both shared a look having no words. They needed to get out of there. Takakura lifted Rock over his shoulder. He was limp. Definitely unconscious or... Mark shook it out of his head. They went to the door but without a word or reason, he ran back to the window and push himself up to the waist out it.

The villagers started shouting. He couldn't separate the calls into individual voices or messages. A rush of cool it him and it rejuvenated him slightly. He breathed it in. "We found him!" he shouted. He doesn't know why. From what they've seen, Rock looks...

Takakura rushed beside him. "The hallways is a no-go. We have to go through the window" The window? There was nothing to land on. It was the second story. "We'll have to jump" Takakura said as if he could read the meaning of Mark's knitted-together eyebrows. "I don't think we can-"

"We don't have a choice" Takakura replied. "Get prepared" he said. "We need to get him help" Takakura moved closer to the window. "Okay" Mark agreed. He leaned back out the window to call for support. He needed them to be prepared to catch them. It was hard for them to hear but they soon understood. After receiving the orders, Carter, Vesta, Marlin, Griffin and some others went to the farm to get bounds of fodder to make a place to land. It seemed idiotic to set a bed of fodder beside a burning building but they were running out of options. Grant, Romana and Chris were to take the children somewhere safe. For some reason, they were watching the blaze along with everyone else. Gustafa, Galen, Lumina were to help the doctors treat the patients. More people had been injured than just the people in the inn.

It hadn't been too long before the bed was made tall. Mark was on the ledge and helping Takakura get there with Rock safely. Flora, Daryl, the Twins and Cody made sure to keep the bed from lighting. Or at least, to slow the burn.

"Mark, here take Rock. You go first" Takakura said. The pain of the heat against their backs brought pinprick-tears to Mark's eyes. "What? Takakura, we should all go together" He shook his head. "The pile isn't big enough for that. I will go next" He began move Rock to Mark's arms. Before Mark could argue, Takakura interjected, "I'm an old man, Mark. You go first" He grinned.

Mark took Rock into his arms. His face was covered in soot and so was his hair. His clothing was charred and he had some burns on his face and neck. His nostrils were black from soot. He was warm but Mark couldn't tell if it was because of the heat inside or not. It was only the faint raising of his chest that told Mark he was still somewhat alive. He could barely hear the hisses Rock made as he tried to breath. It sounded painful. He needed to be treated.

From above, Mark could see the villagers. Dr. Trent, Hardy and Elli were treating Ann. It was a Friday so she was staying in the inn. Her overalls were unfastened at the buckles. Elli was treating her chest. Ann's long braid seemed shorter and in wouldn't surprise him if it had been cut high. Ruby had her arm wrapped up and she was standing as close as was allowed by the people not participating in the fodder pile. Gustafa even had a bandage around his hands. His beard was probably singed. Stray embers drifted passed Mark and Takakura as they stood on the ledge of a burning building.

"We're ready!" Vesta called. She lifted most of the bales there. She was definitely the strongest in the group. With that, Mark jumped with Rock. He tried to land on his rear so Rock wouldn't be injured. "There he is, there he is" he heard some villagers say.

"Get him over here" Dr. Hardy called. Flora pawed at him, trying to yank him from the pile. On the ground now, Mark felt dizzy again. Rock was taken from him by his mother. Patrick and Kassey, moved him from the pile. "You did good" Kassey kept saying, thumping him on the back. He felt like his legs were going to give out upon touching the ground.

Everything next came in a blur with delayed audio. He could see the Dr. Trent rushing to him. He saw glimpses of Dr. Hardy looming over Rock with his medical bag. The air was dusty with smoke and debris. Mark thought he heard the thump of Takakura landing in the pile. The air seemed to move funny and soon the ground gave out from under him.

"He passed out, He passed out!" Was the last thing he heard.

It was the next day when Mark regained consciousness. He was in the Mineral Town clinic with the beautiful Elli treating him. Apparently after he passed out, Kassey and Patrick dragged him to Dr. Trent. It wasn't anything serious. He needed to be treated to burns and was in serious need of bedrest. Takakura made it just fine too except he popped the joint in his hip. He was an old man.

Rock on the other hand. He would be in the hospital for the next few months. He was badly burned and need to be revived twice. His respiratory system was in poor shape from the inhalation of soot and smoke. The chemicals from the smoke disrupted the membranes along his respiratory tract. When Mark went to go see him a week or so after the fire, Rock was a mess. His eyes were bloodshot and the cornea of the left eye was slightly burned. He was having coughing fits, his voice was hoarse and he was hooked up to a nose-tube. Mark soon found out more about what happened that night.

Rock was able to relay that he was in his room that night. He went to flirt with Ann who was staying in the inn for her visit to the Valley and was quickly rebuffed, so he decided he would just chill for the rest of the night despite having plans to leave. It was the middle of the night when he awoke to his door being on fire. Panicked, he flung it open and was sent back by the mere heat. He tried to escape through the hall but there was a wall of fire. He wasn't sure what to do and went into his room again.

Mark will never understand why Rock didn't think to go to the window. According to Rock, he paced back and forth trying to figure out what to do. He tried to leave through the stairway but came back and at some point, slipped and knocked himself unconscious.

It is fortunate for him that smoke raises and he spent most of the time on the ground. They checked his blood for oxygen and he checked out just fine. His mental state was unaffected as well. Dr. Trent had given him some X-rays of his chest because of the intense coughing and found some damage to the lungs. It was nothing that wouldn't heal in time though. Ruby was a mess for the first few weeks, blaming herself for the whole thing. Only the base of the Inn survived. Ruby stayed in mineral town with Rock for the months he was there. Romana offered them a place to stay in her mansion when they returned. Rock was still in rehabilitation but was home at least. The fresh air will do him good, Dr. Trent had said.

Mark was happy that his wife took over for the time being. She tended to the animals and crops. She made him food as well. He insisted that he could take care of himself but she wouldn't' hear it. It was because of her on the night of the fire that pulled him through. He honestly doubts he could've made it without her support. That night she had also aided in the swiftness of the villagers gathering the fodder, showing them were it was, how to gather it, preparing the next loads, telling them the fastest way off the property.

Takakura was also being treated by her. For taking care of Mark as she put it. Nami was fine too. She suffered her burns because she wouldn't leave without saving the others. Her room was spared by the fire. Mark has trouble believing it was just raw luck her hall was untouched. It was nothing but divine intervention. She could've ran clear out of there but Mark later found out she went and got Ann out. She had collapsed as she tried to escape and Nami went back for her. She also tried to save Rock but couldn't.

Eventually Mark went back to work. Nami was staying with Gustafa. The entire village chipped in to raise money for a new inn to be made. It took a few years but it was rebuilt. Rock was fine by that time. He still suffered from the occasional hoarseness and the inability to get a job. Nami remained with Gustafa even after it was built. Ruby still blames herself for it but no one else does. It was a while before people started to stay there regularly. Ann personally didn't stay there on Fridays again until two years after it was rebuilt.

In that time Mark, his wife and their son along with some other villagers would make sure to have some bogus reason as to why they would need to sleep at the inn. Despite their well-scripted reasons as to why they needed to be there, Ruby knew they were just trying to make her feel better, and help pay some of the bills. She at first declined but then Rock complained that they had no money and she really didn't have a choice. It wasn't until Mark's boy was a man, did the inn return to its former glory. A tree was planted beside the inn on right after the fire. Not in the name of the victims or the heroes, but in memory of the town coming together as one when it was most needed. It grew into a mighty tree.


End file.
